Abstract

Abstract: This article explores how student behaviour and interactions change when teachers use producing as a primary pedagogical strategy (Papert, 1980; Ejsing‑Duun and Karoff, 2014). Based on observed student and teacher actions and responses, as w
ell as students production, this paper emphasizes the importance of understanding how students explore creativity and playfulness while producing in learning situations. This paper is based on a large research project called Children as Learning Designe
rs in a Digital School (2013 2015), funded by Denmarks Ministry of Education, which included fieldwork in five Danish public schools, involved about 500 students, and comprised six interventions in the first, second, fifth, sixth, and tenth grades. Th
e projects empirical data consist of observations, participatory observation, and productions students created during the interventions. This paper presents an analysis of how students were creative and playful while producing learning material as games
during three of the projects interventions. The study is based on a specific understanding of the creativity with a point of departure (Boden, 2004; Tanggaard and Wegener, 2015) and playfulness (Karoff, 2013) that occur in learning situations. We app
roach creativity and playfulness as new methods of learning, through six areas of change that inform []how todays kids play and learn, and, more generally, how they see themselves, relate to others, dwell in place, and treat things (Ackermann, 2013:
119). This paper investigates how educators handle childrens productive processes in a school setting and how teachers can conceptualize and nurture play and creativity as drivers for learning. In this context, the importance of skills and acknowledgeme
nt of reproducing and re‑mixing existing materials is discussed. We further argue that playfulness is necessary for creativity to occur. From this point of view, it is possible to understand how learning activities can support creativityan essential twen
ty‑first century skill (Levinsen and Sørensen, 2015).

Abstract

e‑Learning has become a major field of interest in recent years, and multiple approaches and solutions have been developed. A typical form of e‑learning application comprises exercise submission and assessment systems that allow students to work on assignments whenever and where they want (i.e., dislocated, asynchronous work). In basic computer science courses, programming exercises are widely used and courses usually have a very large number of participants. However, there is still no efficient way for supporting tutors to correct these exercises, as experience has shown that correction (and, beyond that, automatic grading) are difficult and time consuming. In this paper we present an enhancement of the xLx platform developed at the University of Muenster to efficiently support tutors in handling Java programming exercises electronically. The new component is based on concepts of automatic static and dynamic testing approaches, well known from software engineering, and provides an automatic pre‑ correction of submitted solutions. In addition, a tutor is able to annotate solutions manually, by adding comments that are associated with the source code of the solution in an intelligent way. Static tests are based on a compilation of the sources to find syntactical errors, while dynamic tests use test cases defined by tutors during the creation of the exercises and have to be executed correctly on the solutions in order to receive credits for the exercises.

Abstract

Blended learning is a pedagogy that is sometimes heralded as the answer to some of the problems which part time students face. Creating a module for part‑time students with some e‑learning elements is time consuming and resource intensive. Therefore it must be demonstrated that the investment in such innovations will benefit the students and create wider learning opportunities in the most effective manner. A small investigation has been conducted which has looked at the learning needs of part‑time finance students at The University of Winchester to see whether a blended approach would have benefited their studies. The results of this investigation have been used as the basis for developing the course to allow a more blended style. This paper attempts to outline how the course was designed and to do a preliminary analysis of the use of blended learning for part‑time mature finance students.